


Twenty Questions

by littlealex



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-20
Updated: 2008-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-12 07:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlealex/pseuds/littlealex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Dean has to deal with what happens when everything doesn't go perfectly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty Questions

_"Go on, get out of here!"_

 _"No. Not 'til I know what that... that_ thing _was."_

 _"Trust me, darlin', you don't wanna know. Now get out of here!"_

 _"I'm not going anywhere."_

Sam tries to tell him it wasn't his fault, but Dean knows better.

"She wouldn't leave, Dean," he says, concern showing in the little creases of his forehead, and the way he looked as though he needed the bathroom. "You can't always make people listen to you."

Sam is never right, though. This isn't about making people listening to him. He could have picked her up and thrown her out if he had really wanted to, but he hadn't.

 _"Listen, sweet cheeks. You wanna stay alive, you get out of here."_

 _"What are you going to do?"_

 _"I can take care of myself."_

 _"How very macho."_

There was a loud noise, then a crash. The girl - Dean realized he didn't even know her name - didn't flinched. She snapped her head in the direction of the noise, eyes peeled - Dean could have sworn her ears pricked up like a Pekinese - but she didn't scream.

Which was good. Dean hated screamers.

 _"Well, looks like I'm not going anywhere any time soon."_

The doorways were blocked; something like an earthquake tore down the stone walls and trapped the two of them in the basement. Immediately, Dean tried to find another way out, but all he found was a barred window neither of them could squeeze through. The girl just stood there with her arms crossed, watching him as though expecting him not to find anything.

It drove Dean to distraction.

 _"You know what? If you're going to be down here, you can help find us a way out. What's looking for us is going to find us, and when it does, it's not going to want to stand around and talk."_

 _"What do you want me to do?"_

 _"Just... pick up that flask there."_

 _"The one with the big-ass crucifix on it?"_

 _"That'd be the one."_

 _"What's in it?"_

 _"Holy water."_

 _"Holy water? Are you serious? What is it with this state and its Christian nuts?"_

Dean didn't really think about religion a whole lot. Sometimes he thought about the time Sam had told him he prayed, but he mostly wondered when Sam actually had the _time_ to pray. As much religious paraphernalia as they carried around and used, Dean never really spared a thought for those who truly _had_ faith. He knew that different religions existed, but only in that they offered different explanations for things that eluded science and reason. So far, driving through fly-over states hadn't presented him with much beyond Christian beliefs.

 _"Pardon me?"_

 _"You're carrying around holy water in a blessed flask with a crucifix on it. What do you think is going to happen here?"_

 _"Look, I don't have time for the whole spiel, but there's a creepy-ass demon out there and that holy water's one of the only things that'll slow it down."_

 _"I'm sorry, did you just say -"_

 _"Demon, yes. You know, like in_ Dogma _, only this one stole a big hairy guy's body instead of Jason Lee. Personally, I'd have gone for Jason Lee, but I guess this demon ain't so picky."_

 _"Well, then, why does the holy water work?"_

Most of the time, people asked for an explanation of why there were demons, or flat out refused to believe him until they were faced with the thing. They didn't ask _why_ things worked.

Dean had been annoyed to find that he didn't know the answer.

 _"Excuse me?"_

 _"I mean, why are demons slowed down by blessed water?"_

 _"Well, I -"_

 _"Are all the demons Christian? What if you were dealing with a Hindu demon, or a Jewish demon, would the holy water still work?"_

 _"I don't -"_

 _"I just can't believe that Hell is full of Christian demons."_

Her questions were sort of annoying at the time. Dean didn't usually meet people who got indignant about the details of hunting evil creatures and demons. People believed either all or nothing of what he said; they didn't bother with how or why. Dean had certainly never asked his father how or why.

It slowly occurred to him that the walking encyclopedia of weirdness that was his younger brother would have been much better suited to this conversation than he was.

 _"I don't know what to tell you. I've been hunting these things since I could throw salt over my shoulder, and maybe I haven't been looking in the right places but I've never seen a demon that wasn't affec- ... huh."_

 _"What?"_

 _"Well, there was this one demon... holy water didn't work on him. Did on his kids, but not on him. He was one powerful son of a bitch, though. Only thing that killed him was something made from witchcraft."_

 _"Witchcraft's a pagan tradition. So, why the holy water?"_

 _"I don't know, alright? I just find these things, tie 'em up, and send them home. I don't ask why, and I don't want to know. I know what works, though, and I don't care where it comes from. You find me a Buddhist prayer that makes 'em back off, I'll be the first to start chanting. Don't need to know what they believe in, or who they answer to, but if something works, I'm going to throw it at them. That and the kitchen sink."_

It was almost poetic, the way the roof caved in the next moment and the kitchen sink (along with various other kitchen appliances) fell into the middle of the room. Dean couldn't have timed it better himself.

What he could have done was stop the big, hairy demon from snapping the girl's neck with a flick of his wrist.

It happened in a heartbeat, a millionth of a second, and he almost hadn't believed it. Usually, demons liked to draw these things out, take a little time and talk about life, death, and everything in between, but this time there was no monologue. This demon cut to the chase without so much as a sideways glance, and pinned Dean to the wall before he knew it.

Sam got him out in the end, but he hadn't been able to save the girl. She was just another casualty. Even though Sam gave him the standard line about not being able to save everybody, Dean couldn't get the girl's questions out of his head. He felt guilty about dismissing them, and he didn't like it. He once told Sam he didn't bring his work home with him, but lately, it's harder to leave it by the roadside.

"Sam?" he asks in the car a few days later. "Why does holy water work on a demon?"


End file.
